Vault of Shadows (30 page)

“It's a story,” said Shark. “About a little girl who follows a white rabbit down a hole and winds up in some wacky magical kingdom.”

“There's nothing about a hole here,” insisted Evangelyne. “It says he went through doorways.”

“Might be one of those . . .” He snapped his fingers as he fished for the word. “What do they call it when something means something else?”

“A metaphor?” suggested Milo.

“Right. Maybe the doorways are metaphorical rabbit holes. Or something. I might have that backward.”

“No,”
said the wolf girl, “I get you. You're saying we have to look for something that is
like
a rabbit hole. A magical doorway of some kind, right?”

“Something like that.”

She looked at him and smiled. “You may actually be smarter than you look.”

“Gee,” said Shark. “Thanks. Loads.”

Milo put his book away. “C'mon, let's go.”

Evangelyne went first, dropping into wolfshape and running on four silent paws. Her silver-gray fur allowed her to blend in with the gray and dusty rubble. The boys and Mook watched from behind the burned shell of an Abrams tank until Evangelyne made it across a crammed lot that had once been a hotel. She became a girl again and pressed backward against the wall, looking up and down the street. Then she waved them on. Shark went next, moving low and being careful to make maximum use of ground cover. Killer, silent and tiny, darted ahead of him.

Milo turned to tell Mook to go, but there was only a pile of loose stone behind him. The rock boy had shed his body, and Milo knew—weird and creepy as it was—that Mook's spirit was somehow traveling through the pieces of stone and brick and shattered granite to where Evangelyne waited.

“Freaky,” Milo breathed, and then he was running.

As soon as he left the cover of the dead tank, he saw a 'trooper walking across the avenue on four powerful
legs, a pulse rifle held in two hands, its head swiveling left and right. Milo froze and tried to will himself into the landscape, to become as unobtrusive as any piece of debris. The shocktrooper was too far for Milo's slingshot to be of any value, and Shark's pulse pistol was too loud. Evangelyne could not defeat a shocktrooper alone.

Milo tried to be a statue.

He tried to be invisible.

The 'trooper scuttled slowly across the avenue, and for a moment it looked like the 'trooper would not see Milo at all.

Just for a moment.

But that moment passed.

The 'trooper stiffened in surprise and immediately swung its rifle around toward Milo. The green lifelight on its chest seemed to flare with indignation, and the sound of angry clicking filled the air as the creature's mandibles twitched.

“Run!” shouted Shark.

Evangelyne morphed into wolfshape and began sprinting toward the alien warrior.

And then the shocktrooper seemed to fly apart in a sudden mass of green goo and chunks of shattered armor. Something huge and gray rose up behind it, arms sweeping wide to scatter the pieces of the alien across the rubble-strewn street.

Milo gaped, caught in the split second between
acceptance that his death was inevitable and disbelief that the end wasn't here at all.

The gray mass resolved itself into a shape. A very recognizable shape.

“Mook,” said the shape—as if any statement of personal identification was necessary.

Milo nearly collapsed with relief.

All at once Mook collapsed, falling to pieces as he had only a minute ago. Milo turned to follow a rippling line of disturbance in the rocky debris on the ground. A few seconds later, Mook re-formed against the wall near Evangelyne. For a creature incapable of facial expression, he nevertheless managed to look immensely smug.

“Mook,” he said.

“Well,” gasped Milo, “I suppose so.”

He ran to catch up.

T
hey made their way through the occupied town, taking time, being careful, often hiding in destroyed houses or the trunks of burned cars. If this had been the city of New Orleans before the war, it probably would have taken them maybe an hour to reach the edge of Jackson Square. As it was, dodging and hiding and moving as slowly as caution demanded, it took seven long hours. The sun was already beginning its descent toward the distant trees. Not that sunlight was much of a factor, as most of New Orleans was blanketed by the perpetual shadow of the great hive ship. The dense gloom was useful. It saved their lives a dozen times that day, and Milo thought it ironic that the greatest symbol of the Swarm's power, the hive ship, was also one of its weaknesses.

Now they were hiding inside the moldering corpse of a giant alien worm that had died and been left to rot in the hot sun. Milo had to fight the urge to throw up. Shark lost the fight and hurled up everything he'd eaten that morning. As soon as the smell of it was in the air, Evangelyne turned and vomited against the wall.

And so did Milo.

Once the danger was past and they were preparing to leave the huge corpse, Evangelyne muttered, “We are never going to talk about this.”

The boys could only manage weak nods.

Milo crouched in the mouth of the monstrous worm and used Shark's compact binoculars to study the way ahead. Evangelyne knelt beside him.

“We're only a block away,” she said quietly, then nodded toward the row of houses on the left side of the street. “See that alleyway? We can go down there and stay off the main street.”

“Good,” said Milo, “but just in case we have to make a run for it, everyone goes a different way and we meet right back here in the worm. I don't think even a Stinger could sniff us out in here.”

“Ugh,” said Shark behind him.

“Okay,” said Milo, “let's go.”

But as Milo went to rise, Mook clamped a stony hand on his shoulder and forced him down. “Mook!” he said fiercely, pointing to something in the air above the houses.

Milo flinched away from what he saw and had to shove half his fist in his mouth to keep from crying out.

Not eighty feet above them, standing like a dark colossus on a sky-board painted the color of fresh blood,
was the Huntsman.
Killer whined and retreated all the way into the stomach of the dead worm. The half-grown Iskiel dropped from Mook's shoulder and scuttled after him.

The Huntsman's
sky-board was different from the ones used by the six shocktroopers who flew in two angled lines behind him. Theirs were simple disks controlled by foot pressure, but the Huntsman rested his hands on a control column that rose up from the front of his machine. Milo studied him through the binoculars. The great hybrid monster had changed a lot in the last few days. The last time they'd seen him was aboard the hive ship, and they'd left him unconscious and injured in the ruins of the egg chamber. Evangelyne, in werewolf form, had bitten off the killer's left hand, and Mook had shattered his jaw with a mighty punch. Milo had stabbed him, though that had been only a scratch. If Milo had had any hopes that the Huntsman would be suffering from those wounds, he was thoroughly disappointed.

The Huntsman's jaw now gleamed with a new armor of bright steel, and Milo suspected it was a cybernetic repair job—something that enhanced rather than merely fixed the shattered bones. And in place of his missing left hand was a new one that was made of the same gleaming metal, with six long, segmented fingers and a row of wicked spikes sprouting from the back. He wore metal gauntlets on both wrists and forearms, and matching greaves on his legs. The werewolf would be taking no more trophies from him. And there was a wire cage around his green lifelight that Milo suspected would withstand any number of ball-bearing slingshot rounds. There were pistols on each hip and knives strapped to his
thighs, and rising above his right shoulder was the handle of some great sword of alien design. The Huntsman also wore a skullcap of the same metal, and on his forehead was an empty socket that looked just big enough to hold a small faceted stone.

It didn't require much thought to guess what stone the Huntsman planned to use to fill that socket. Milo handed the binoculars to Shark, who took a look and passed them to Evangelyne and Mook.

The Huntsman flew slowly across the sky, his sky-board forming the point of a V, the six shocktroopers making up the arms. The way he stood there made Milo think of some ancient warrior in his battle chariot.

“Oh, man,” said Shark, and the way he said it reminded Milo of just how small and young they all were, and how big and dangerous everything else was.

It also reminded Milo of something the Witch of the World had said to him in his dreams. Milo had said, “Everything's getting so complicated. I can't keep it all straight.” And she'd replied,
The world has always been complicated, Milo. What's changed is that now you're able to notice.

Sometimes there were things that seemed to hammer that home to Milo with greater force. This was one of them. He'd lived in camps for years, hiding from the Swarm, protected by his mother and her soldiers, feeling safe and distanced from the ugly realities of the world. Now his mind and all of his five senses seemed to want to shout the truth at him.

He lived in a conquered world. His world was a battlefield. And there was not much hope that there was going to be a happy ending to his story.

No, not much hope at all.

It should have made him want to cry, to crawl away and hide, to fall down. To give up. That truth should have done all those things and more to Milo Silk.

Should have.

Instead Milo rose from his place of hiding and stepped out into the street to watch the Huntsman fly away. Then he turned toward the alley that led to their destination.

“Come on,” he said.

Together the Orphan Army, such as it was, went to war.

T
hey cut across the street and then slipped into the narrow alley. There was enough rubble and weeds to allow them to move quickly without being seen. Not that anyone was looking. This part of the French Quarter was relatively deserted except for dozens of destroyed military vehicles and uncountable skeletons. There had been a terrible battle here, but it had happened years ago and even the stubborn stink of gunpowder had long since faded. Now only the weeds and scampering vermin held dominion.

It was quiet enough for Evangelyne to share a few words with Milo.

“I'm so sorry about your friend,” she said. “Lizabeth seemed like a nice girl.”

“She was,” said Milo, flinching at the pain her words—however kindly meant—inflicted.

“Please,” said Evangelyne, “don't let anger or a need for revenge pollute you.”

“Pollute me? What do you mean by that?”

“Revenge can summon the bad kind of darkness into a person's soul. I see it growing like root rot in Oakenayl.
He has lost so many of the trees he loves, and so much of his family, that now all he knows is hate. He's even pulling away from the other Nightsiders. Soon the darkness will own him.”

Milo nodded. “Is that what happened to Queen Mab?”

“Yes. Once, many thousands of years ago, she was a queen of light and beauty, and her faerie lands were filled with joy. But now her mind feeds on her hatred of you Daylighters—and of the rest of the Nightsiders—because she thinks all of the supernaturals should have stood with the
Aes Sídhe
in a war to exterminate all of humankind.” Evangelyne shook her head. “I . . . I can understand it too. You and Shark think I'm cold and that I'm always trying to be the grown-up, and maybe that's true. But it's only part of it. Mostly I'm fighting to keep control.”

“Control of what? Your hate?”

“Yes. It's always there, right beneath the surface. Like the wolf, or maybe it's part of the wolf. The hate wants to own me, and sometimes, when I'm tired or weak or scared, I think maybe I should let it. Perhaps that's the only way I'm ever going to fight back and win.”

Milo walked a few steps before he answered. “Yeah,” he said, “I get that. I really do.”

She touched his hand. “Please,” she begged, “don't let it take you. You're a good person, Milo. You don't have much darkness in you. Maybe that's why the Witch of the World speaks to you and not to me or Oakenayl.
Maybe she chose you because there is more light in your soul than shadows.”

“It doesn't feel that way.”

“Please,” she said again. “My aunt once told me that it takes a lot more courage to do what's right than to do what's easy. And hate is easy.” She gestured to the ruined world around them. “Hate is way too easy.”

Shark, who was walking point for their party, suddenly stopped, one fist raised in the classic signal for everyone to freeze. Then, after some nervous hesitation, he waved them on, and Milo, Evangelyne, and Mook caught up and saw what had jolted Shark.

It jolted them, too.

They were standing at the mouth of the alley and could see the street before them. Directly across from the alley was a building. It was the only structure left intact on the whole block. The grimy, scorched sign outside said that it was an antiques store, but Milo knew that this had to be the real-world face of the mysterious Gadfellyn Hall. There were no shocktroopers, Stingers, or hunter-killers. However, on the ground in front of the building, all the concrete paving stones were shattered, and rising up from the dirt were the domes of sixty pale, diseased-looking mushrooms. They formed a large circle in front of the door.

A faerie ring.

The toadstools were broken and pieces of them lay scattered.

However, there was something inside the ring. A
humped shape that lay curled in a blackened ball of charred bones.

“No!” growled Milo, and he broke from cover and ran across the street before anyone could stop him. A sleek gray shape raced past and halted between Milo and the ring. The wolf became the girl, and she turned and held her palms out.